1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to a panel of rectangular shape comprising a plurality of electric devices spread over the panel, a control unit including a microprocessor and a power supply, a plurality of drivers for driving the electric devices, based on control information received from the control unit and electric wiring connecting the first control unit, the plurality of drivers and the electric devices, the shape of the panel being adaptable by removing one or more parts of the panel by cutting, sawing, milling, drilling or other suitable methods. The invention also concerns a building structure compiled of several such panels.
2. Description of Related Art
Panels with electric devices are known, for instance to cover walls or ceilings. Several types of electric devices may be installed at such panels. However in the known panels these electric devices usually concern electric light elements, in particular light emitting diodes. The panels with electric devices are supplied as prefabricated components with a certain shape, in general as square or rectangular tiles, and with certain dimension. The wall or ceiling, or any other building part of destination, may have a shape, for instance slanted sides and corners, and/or dimension that do not fit the shape and dimension of a panel or a multiple of panels. In particular the building may have construction elements, such as columns, beams or tubes, which interfere with parts of the panel. For this reason the panel needs to be adaptable to the building. However by cutting the panel to the required shape, essential parts may be removed or disconnected. This is of course unacceptable since after cutting the remaining electric devices should still function. Therefore the control unit should be such that optimal flexibility is obtained with respect to the possibility to shape a panel around an obstacle by removing part of the panel, while the functions of the remaining part of the panel remain unimpaired.
A display panel that addresses to some extent the problem of adaptability is for instance known from EP2085955. The electric devices of this known panel are light emitting elements, in particular light emitting diodes (LEDs). The panel is a PCB (printed circuit board) board and is used for (large area) displays. The panel of EP2085955 suggests a scheme where a control unit, centrally placed in the panel, contains the drivers of the light emitting elements, allowing parts of the periphery of the panel to be removed without impeding the functionality of the remaining panel. Thus the area of the panel that can be cut is directly related to the extents of the control unit which contains the drivers. This requires that the drivers are placed as close as possible to each other, but then this design might lead to thermal management problems especially when such a panel installation is used for primary lighting with high current light emitting elements.
Furthermore, this prior art suggests that when a diagonal cut or any other cut going through the control-unit, and hence the drivers, needs to be made to accommodate an obstacle, the control-unit should be first unmounted from the panel which then can be cut, and then the drivers of the control-unit may be reconnected to the light emitting elements. This problem makes in-situ installation of such panels quite demanding.
When an area larger than the removable periphery needs to be cut out, this is then in certain cases also possible by first “trimming” part of the panel in order to bring the control-unit outside the desired cutoff line, and then cut the remaining part to the desired shape; however such an approach would lead to a number of clear disadvantages:                firstly it would require more panels than the optimal number to be used, while also due to the additional cuts, considerable design effort during in situ installation is required.        secondly it would result in a non-edge-to-edge tiling of the panels covering the target surface, as a panel could result having on the same side two neighboring panels. This problem is not only related to the aesthetic result, but it may further require a far more complex panel configuration and interconnection scheme.        finally, depending on the dimensions of the control unit and the target obstacle, the neighboring light emitting elements of two panels could end up in uneven distances compared to the rest of the light emitting elements, thus causing an undesirable aesthetic result.        
WO 2010/136998 describes a cut to measure display device comprising a plurality of pixel groups and a main controller. Each pixel group comprises one subcontroller and a plurality of individually controllable pixels that all are connected to the subcontroller of the group and at least one is further connected to a subcontroller of an adjacent group. Although when such a display device is being cut, there is a potential backup, it is not possible to predict when cutting if functionality is being lost or not. Thus it requires complex software to be run to ensure the optimal usage of the backup connections that are available, while there is still no guarantee that no functionality is being lost. This makes in situ adaptation of the shape of the display device very difficult if not impossible. Also the device comprises a rather complicated electric wiring scheme, thus rendering the need of a PCB (printed circuit board) covering the whole surface of the panel a necessity. This significantly increases the cost of production compared to the optimal PCB usage, especially when the electric devices (light emitting elements) are forming a sparse pattern.
The present invention intends to solve several of the problems of the prior art as described above and in particular intends to provide a panel with electric devices that allows for a large variety of shapes being removed from the panel without impairing the functionality of the remaining electric devices, and at the same time allows predictability for any shape of cutout if there will be loss of functionality of the electric devices.